


Coming Home

by lalaietha



Series: Ten Thousand Things [6]
Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: Finding Ursa, Gen, Reunions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-04-25
Updated: 2012-04-25
Packaged: 2017-11-04 07:03:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,675
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/391098
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lalaietha/pseuds/lalaietha
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She's been away for many years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Coming Home

She doesn't actually believe the war is over. 

Here, she is Nali. The world has narrowed down from the past into the present; the present is one long moment, one long _now_. It lets her survive, if she doesn't think about the past, or the future. The past is like a knife; the future is a stretch of emptiness. If she looks at either, they both overwhelm her. 

In the endless _now,_ she can tread water. In the endless now, she can be numb enough that the ordinary passage of days can bring some kind of contentment. She can smile at the people who drop off laundry; she can have friends; she can enjoy tea, food (food that is never spiced enough), company. 

As long as nothing exists but the now. 

Her world has become very small, locked in a little sphere of village-mountains-village: her little house, its attached hut for the laundry, the path to the well, the path to the market, back again to the house. Tiny sphere, tiny span, the stretch and circumference of her life reduced to nothing more than a few hours' walk, and the one path there and back again. She doesn't mind, or so she tells herself. There's a comfort to the familiarity. 

And now they say the war is over, but she (here she is Nali) doesn't believe it. They used to say this all the time, every time the Earth Kingdom called something a victory. It wasn't true then, as the defeats and the strings of wounded men taking refuge here proved. Nali doesn't believe it's true now. Not even after Oma's nephew went down to the valley and came back swearing that he had heard it from official government agents, and that the agent would be coming up the mountain just as soon as he recovered from the fever that he caught on the road. 

The war will never end. Not until the Fire Lord grinds the Earth Kingdom into the dust and used their bones for mortar in his new empire. She knows that. She knows that better than anyone. Nobody should wish for the war's end because the war's end will be the end of everything; she knows it could never be anything else. 

Thinking about that breaks the _now_ , and she realizes her cheeks are wet. She wipes them with the back of her hand, fills the little kettle and sets it on the small flame, measures the tea into the pot and wraps herself up in what she has to do. Mending today, rather than washing. She's good at mending. She has always had small, neat stitches. With her shutters open, there is a pleasant breeze into her house and through it. The afternoon promises pleasant. 

When the water boils, Nali stands up. When she pours the water over the leaves, she looks out of the only window in her small, small house. It is midday. Sora's children will be playing in front of her house. They're a pretty pair, her twins, and Nali likes to watch them. 

So she is looking out the window when the eel-hounds come through the gates of the village. 

There are two of them. There are two people on each. Their riders wear Fire Nation colours, but they are flanked by men from the Earth King's armies, each mounted on an ostrich-horse, and they are talking with the Fire Nation riders, and laughing, joking. Behaving as friends, not enemies.

It makes no sense. 

Her fellow villagers come to their doors to stare. Then they hang back, when they see what there is to stare at, although the comforting waves from their own soldiers reassure them. One of them leans down to talk to Old Man Ito, and Ito points right to Nali's house. The eel-hounds and ostrich-horses stop. The riders of the closest eel-hound get down, and turn towards Nali and her house. 

The teapot falls out of her hand and shatters on the floor. 

There are three steps from her table to her door. She takes them; she leans on the door-frame and stands there to stare at them all, but most of all at two of the riders. 

His name is Piandao. He is a sword-master. The knowledge blooms into words in her head as he stands in front of her house and bows very low. And there is a girl behind him: she knows the girl. Lighter hair than many; grey eyes. Her name is Ty Lee. She is dressed strangely. She is dressed like she comes from the Earth Kingdom. 

It makes no sense. 

And Piandao, who is a sword-master, is still bowed when he says, "Lady Ursa, your son, Fire Lord Zuko, asks if you would come home." 

The past breaks through the present like the wave after the earth convulses and she can't breathe; but the future she knew is wiped away like the wreckage after a storm, after a tsunami, and she can only stare at the little pieces, because this is not a thing she ever thought to hear. 

Ursa, who isn't Nali, not really, and but has been for many years now, can't breathe. "Fire Lord - " she starts, and can't finish. She finds words: "But, Ozai - ?" 

On Piandao's face there is compassion, as he straightens. On Piandao's face there is something like understanding. "Ozai has been defeated and deposed, Lady Ursa," he says. The other villagers are staring at her. They are not whispering yet. That will come afterward. Later. When they have seen enough to be sure that this is real, and not a trick, or a play, or a hallucination shared among them all. "Fire Lord Zuko's coronation was a month or so ago. He's been looking for you since." 

She feels like she is swimming in cold water again. Distantly, through the numbing sense of all of it, her mind tries to imagine Zuko grown, Zuko royally dressed, and stumbles over and over again at the image of the child she left (all confused, all rushed) a lifetime ago. 

It's been many years. He will look so different now. 

Ursa doesn't feel her legs give out from under her. She only knows she is falling. Piandao is at her arm at once, helping her to sit. Ty Lee is at her other arm, but at a murmured word from the sword-master that Ursa does not hear, the girl goes into Ursa's house (into Nali's house, the ambit of her world for so long) at a graceful near run. 

She comes back out, shaking her head. "The teapot's broken, Master Piandao," she says, and Ursa chokes a laugh. 

"I dropped it," she says. "I'm sorry, I dropped it." And then she says, "My son - " 

Her face is wet again. She touches her own cheeks in a kind of wonder, looks at the tears on her fingertips. 

"Let's go inside, Lady Ursa," says the sword-master at her arm. "I think I have a lot to tell you."

*****

Zuko and Azula's mother looks much older than she did before.

One of the nicer-looking ladies from outside brings a new teapot, already full of tea; Ty Lee smiles brightly at her, thanks her, and then firmly closes the door and doesn't invite her in. Ty Lee has been in villages like this before, and even the nice ones are usually gossips, and not all of the gossips are nice ones, and Lady Ursa doesn't need that right now. 

She looks so tired. 

It isn't that she looks old the way Lo and Li look old: there is some white in her hair, but not a lot, and she hasn't gone wrinkly. It's something else. It echoes. 

Ty Lee tries not to look at Lady Ursa's aura. She thinks it might be intruding, and she also thinks she might not be up to seeing what's there. Master Piandao's is still reassuring, dark-green-and-ebony, like an old, imposing tree. Ty Lee focuses on that instead. The last thing she wants to do is make anything harder for anyone. 

Because she's going to have to tell Lady Ursa about Azula. She is, or somebody is. Lady Ursa's going to have to find out. 

After she pours Lady Ursa's tea, and gives it to her, Ty Lee sits down on the floor. She crosses her legs, and finds herself playing with her skirts before she closes her fists, takes a deep breath, and lets it go. 

She isn't in uniform, precisely: they'd agreed this would be strange enough for Lady Ursa without being confronted with a Kyoshi Warrior, and besides, the face-paint would make Ty Lee hard to recognize. But she still feels more comfortable now in the greens and the right folds, so she's sort of . . . half-dressed, for what she is now. She didn't _have_ to be. Kyoshi Warriors wore ordinary clothes, when it was appropriate. But she'd wanted to. It's like a covenant. That she has a place, and a thing to be, even when she isn't _being_ it. 

Suki seems to understand. 

"There's a lot to tell you," Master Piandao says, when Ty Lee gives Lady Ursa her tea. "Probably days' worth, to be honest." 

"But my son is Fire Lord," Lady Ursa says, distantly. Her eyes look faraway. "And Ozai is gone." Ty Lee notices that she doesn't ask if he's dead or not. Maybe she assumes he is. Or maybe she doesn't want to know. He had been her husband, after all. Ty Lee can understand that. She sort of knows how it feels.

"And the war is over," Lady Ursa goes on. "And the stories about the Avatar are true." 

"That's the core of things," Master Piandao agrees. 

Lady Ursa nods, slowly. 

She really looks so different. Ty Lee remembers Lady Ursa in expensive silks, with her hair long and beautiful, and her skin pale, and her hands soft. Now she's sun-browned, and her hair is shorter and tied up in a simple bun, and her hands look like they had work-calluses. She's thinner, too. 

And after she nods, her eyes go over Master Piandao's shoulder, and they fall on Ty Lee. And Ty Lee knows what Lady Ursa is going to ask, and winces even before Lady Ursa has finished asking the question. 

Ty Lee knows what she was going to ask. But she didn't expect how Lady Ursa would ask it. She didn't expect Lady Ursa to sound like she expects notice of a funeral, or directions to a grave. "And my daughter?" Azula's mother asks, as if she can't imagine Azula isn't already dead. 

So what comes out of Ty Lee's mouth is faster than it might have been otherwise, and less thought out. "Oh, she's - " Then she stops, because while it's true that Azula's better than she had been right after the Day of the Comet, that kind of only makes sense if you'd actually _seen_ her fall apart. Or at least heard the stories. 

Ty Lee hadn't seen that, although she'd heard Mai went to look. That's the kind of thing Mai does. She isn't always a very kind person, if you get on her bad side, and she isn't good at forgiving.

"She's not very well," Ty Lee tells Lady Ursa instead, lowering her eyes. "She had a really hard time at the end of the war. It kind of got to her, and she, well, she fell apart a bit." Ty Lee doesn't want to look up; she doesn't want to know if Lady Ursa's eyes are wet-bright again. 

When Ty Lee does look up, it was to glance at Piandao. She sees what's in his face, the reserve, and for just a second Ty Lee lets herself glare at him. He'd never lived through Azula. He has no right to have an opinion on whether or not Ty Lee still cares about her, even after everything. Mai's the only one who gets to have an opinion, and maybe Zuko, and neither of them have ever said anything. 

Nobody else gets to, not even a little. 

Piandao doesn't say a word. He doesn't look away, exactly, but he doesn't keep eye-contact, either. Just looks back to Lady Ursa and asks, respectfully, "Will you come back to the capital, Lady Ursa?" 

Lady Ursa's answer is a nod. Then she takes a deep breath. It shudders a bit. But her voice is clear when she says, "And you can tell me everything while we travel."

*****

Piandao had offered his presence on this mission on the basis that it might be better if there was someone over the age of twenty-five involved, and that he, like Ty Lee, had at least met the lady and so would both recognize and be recognized, though to say he'd known her before would be a vast overstatement.

Piandao had been at court, around the time that Ozai had married. Being as good as he is brings some privileges, although having Fire Lord Azulon's full attention was a mixed blessing. He'd been at the celebration of their wedding, on the strength of his association with his patrons and his celebrity at the time. At the celebration, but never close to the royal couple. He'd seen a beautiful but reserved-looking young woman married to an intense and self-centered prince, and only briefly.

At a different gathering, one only she had attended, he had, if he recalled correctly, said something to her at one point. But he also recalled he'd been slightly younger and thus more than a little drunk at the time. 

Then he'd gone back out into the world. Done some things he wasn't so proud of. Tripped over an old man in the colonies in the Earth Kingdom who, after a somewhat eventful winter and Piandao saving his life a couple of times, including once that would have counted as treason if anyone had survived who could prove it was him who did it, inducted him into the White Lotus. 

Where, coincidentally, he'd discovered whose granddaughter Princess Ursa was. 

He'd seen Ursa twice after that, both times due to Fire Lord Azulon's invitation to the capitol. Small gatherings, and neither time her husband present. She had been like that, he recalled: more likely to gather people together, to seek company. The second time, they'd had a conversation about kado and calligraphy for which Piandao had been completely sober. She'd been pregnant with Azula then, but it wasn't polite to notice those things. 

Then Azulon was dead, Ozai was crowned, and the woman who would have been Fire Lady by his side had disappeared. There were rumours of treason and banishment, but nobody said anything. Not that Piandao had ever heard. That was the way of things. 

Or, that had been the way of things, under the children and grandchildren of Sozin. 

Piandao lies awake on his pallet on the floor of the house where Ursa has lived, these past years. He has difficulty thinking of it as hers, or at least, difficulty thinking of it as hers and holding his temper. That's presumptuous of him, he knows. He does not have any particular right to be offended or angry on her behalf. That's best left to her son, who at least by reputation has plenty of anger for the job. Piandao hasn't noticed that, as such, these past few weeks. Not more than any other boy. 

That's part of it. They were all boys, or girls: children. It troubles him. It's one thing to teach a boy of fifteen, sixteen years to use a sword; it's another to know that he's using it, lest it be used on him, and yet another for him to bear the weight of strategy, of invasion, of all the lives these things take. 

Likewise, it's one thing to replace a bad ruler with a good one - and another thing entirely, to place the burdens of a country just jerked back from the edge of perdition on the shoulders of a boy. 

Not that there was much choice, either way. Still. It bothers him. 

And it bothers him that the woman brave enough, resourceful enough to save that boy, on whose actions - in many ways - their victory had been built, had lived this way, for so many years. 

He doesn't sleep much, and he sleeps lightly; when Lady Ursa gets up before dawn, it wakes him. When she stands in front of the fire, staring at it, he eventually decides to sit up, to get up. 

"I keep thinking that I should feel like I'm going to miss this place." Lady Ursa says it as he stands, telling him she'd known he was awake. Ty Lee is still curled up in her bedroll, having refused Lady Ursa's offer of the bed with a cheerful grin. She sleeps the sleep of the young and unconcerned. Piandao envies her that. 

"I have friends here," Lady Ursa goes on, still looking at the fire. "Or, Nali has friends here. Who I was. I've lived here a long time. I have had," she nearly echoes herself - nearly, but with a change, "a life here." 

She seems more self-possessed this morning than she had been yesterday. More like the woman with whom he'd discussed how to lengthen the life of flowers, and what kind of paper was the finest, all those years ago. 

Piandao replies, "It wasn't a life you wanted, your highness. I can't think anyone could blame you for wanting to leave it for what you left behind." And then, a little more briskly, he asks, "Where might I find your water?" 

The Earth Kingdom soldiers are asleep in different houses in the villages. They're all young men, single, who had performed some kind of exemplary service. They are mostly there so that nobody in the Earth Kingdom would feel threatened by the eel-hounds, Piandao himself, Ty Lee, or the two Fire Nation spies (to name them properly) who came with them to show the way. 

There are only one or two people about yet, in the dim, young light, and the only looks he got are wary, not antagonistic. He finds the well easily enough and brings back the water. Lady Ursa has already stoked the fire; she holds the kettle while he fills it and then sets it over the flames. All in silence. 

Then she says, "Tell me what happened." 

Piandao hesitates. "It's a long story, Lady Ursa," he said, but she smiles slightly, humourlessly, and shook her head. 

"Tell me the shape," she says. "Give me an outline. You can fill it in with colour and detail later, but tell me the spine of it now." 

He's not exactly a courtier, but he knows what she meant, and what she was asking. knows the kind of sketch she means, the kind that an aide might give a diplomat before his negotiations with a new ally. 

"Let me make the tea," he says. 

Lady Ursa lets him stall with that, for at least a moment. She lets him measure out leaves, pour water when it boils, count the heartbeats for it to steep, and then to pour it. When she takes the cup, it's to wrap her hands around it much more like the peasant laundress she'd been pretending to be, than the lady she is - but the gaze over the cup is something else. And it reminds him that those of power dislike repeating themselves. 

Piandao takes a mouthful of his tea, and collects his thoughts. "Until three years ago, things went on pretty much as you left them," he says, cutting details away in preference for the spine of the thing. "Then, I gather, your son spoke out against one of his father's generals and was banished." 

She drinks her tea like Earth Kingdom poverty, but her voice is sharp and strong, for all its quietness, when she says, "Don't spare me, Master Piandao. You're leaving something out." 

He sighs. "Ozai took the challenging of his general as a personal offense," he says. It is, perhaps, kinder to tell her anyway; seeing her son might then be less of a shock. "He attempted formal satisfaction." 

Her eyes widen as she parses out what he means; her mouth tightens. Piandao goes on, "When your son refused to fight, Ozai . . . left him with a reminder. His face is burned, from left eye to left ear." 

Lady Ursa takes in a slow breath, and closes her eyes. Then she says, "Continue, please," and her voice is as tranquil as a stream in late summer.

"General Iroh accompanied your son into exile," Piandao says, obeying. He thinks he sees something flicker in her eyes at that, but she stays silent. "The condition of Prince Zuko's return was his capture of the Avatar." He pauses again as Lady Ursa's mouth twists, but she says nothing. "What was a wild goose chase turned into something else, of course, when the Avatar actually reappeared in the world." 

He stops, trying to think how to condense what came next, when he has it only second-hand to begin with. At last, he gives up and shrugs, hewing to the bone. "Events unfolded - I'll tell you how in the long version, later. The important part is that in the course of it, Ozai declared Iroh and your son to be traitors, and sent your daughter to catch them and the Avatar both." 

This time, he stios because Lady Ursa rises in one sharp, quick motion. He waits, as she finds rice and another pot, takes the kettle off and puts the new pot on, cuts pieces of dried fruit and adds them as well. 

"Go on," she says, and her voice is very calm as she stirs the pot. 

"Several months later, Azula took Ba Sing Se," Piandao says, drifting over much of the period of a price on her son's head. Even he had seen the posters, though the chances of the then-disgraced prince making his way to Piandao's corner of the world had been minimal. "To manage it, she offered your son his place back. The Avatar was badly injured, and Iroh was captured." 

"Ozai let Zuko return home?" Lady Ursa asks, sharply, pouring herself more tea. Piandao nods. 

"Prince Zuko left some time later," he says. "On the Day of Black Sun, after Ozai had announced to his council his intent to burn the Earth Kingdom to the ground and to crown himself Phoenix King of the world." 

"How ostentatious," she murmurs. "Zuko left? Where did he go?" 

"To the Avatar," Piandao replies. "He was the Avatar's teacher in firebending. When Ozai left to destroy the Earth Kingdom, he declared Azula Fire Lord and left her in the capitol." 

"How petty," she says, and this time Piandao gives her a quizzical look. The smile that ghosts across her features holds no humour. "He gave her everything she ever wanted and then made it meaningless. The Avatar killed my husband?" she asks, before he can parse that.

"Avatar Aang defeated Ozai," Piandao says, mostly agreement. At her quizzical, or at least questioning look, he says, "Ozai is alive, in prison. The Avatar stripped him of his ability to bend, and formally deposed him." 

Now Lady Ursa smiles, slowly; this smile holds bitter satisfaction. Then she draws in a deep breath, and said, "And Zuko deposed his sister." 

"She was . . .unbalanced," Piandao says, diplomatically. He himself hadn't seen the now-mad princess, but he'd heard the stories. "She nearly killed him, but they both lived." Which would be the important part, to a mother. 

"And now my son is Fire Lord," she says, distantly. She drains her teacup. "You're right. It is a long story. I can gather some idea of what you're leaving out." 

"I saw a lot of it," Ty Lee says, and Piandao starts: he hadn't heard her wake, or rise. "I can tell you." 

"Later," Lady Ursa says, putting down her cup. "For now, my dear, let me show you where you can wash, and then we'll eat, and then we'll go."

*****

The Avatar, who is more than a hundred years old, who defeated Ozai and stripped him of power, and then (or so Ursa is now told) raised the ocean to put out the fires, is a twelve year old boy with wide hopeful eyes, airbender tattoos, and a monkey-like creature on his shoulder.

Ursa finds it hard to take in. 

They had travelled more slowly than they could have. It's deftly done, but Ursa knows what it's for: it gave the opportunity of the inn, of giving her the chance of real baths, of giving her new clothes. Of giving her time, as well, to absorb as much as she can. 

She could have told Piandao, gently, that she isn't bothering: that the new present is like a flood and she is simply treading water, until the journey is over, until she sees both her children alive, until she has space to let it all shake her apart and let her come to terms with everything. 

But she doesn't. He is a man without children, living alone, his life wholly his own and unencumbered; she doesn't think he would understand. 

Ty Lee darts like an attendant sparrow-mouse, eyes wide, talking at a hundred miles an hour if a silence threatened. She's nervous, Ursa thought; she's grieving, too, though she hides it well under layers of sparkling light and cheer.

Ursa just treads the water, and lets it take her. 

But now, outside the inn, there is a wind-buffalo. Bigger than any creature she's ever seen, its white fur marked with a darker arrow, it stands on the ground in front of her. And in front of him, a boy, who slid off the animal's head to lightly hit the ground, and bow over flattened and fisted hands. 

They had taught her, as a girl, that those markings meant _Air Nomad warrior_. She has learned, as a woman and an exile, that there was never any such thing. Still. Still. 

And this is the boy, the child, who had deposed her husband. This is the child her son had taught. This is the child the world had been waiting for, and this is the child who had brought the war to an end. 

He says, "You must be Zuko's mom," as they stand in the inn's courtyard. His voice is bright, friendly - nervous, even. "I'm Aang. I mean," he stops, as if correcting himself, "I'm the Avatar. But my name is Aang, and mostly, I'm your son's friend." 

Laughter - edged, sharp laughter, laughter tinged over with triumph - bubbles up in her chest. She swallows it; she's good at that and every day brings old patterns back to her. But the laughter remains, behind her eyes and under her skin. She finds that she wishes, truly wishes, that she could have seen Ozai's face when he lost to this child. 

But she puts that away, and bows to this impossible apparition. Bows, in fact, to the reincarnation of her grandfather. 

"I am deeply pleased to meet you," she says. Because formality, politeness, these things are the habits of a lifetime. She had left that life suspended for so many years, but it was always still there. And the thoughts and patterns come back to her like old friends, and old enemies. 

"Aang!" Ty Lee's voice comes, and she runs out to hug him, the monkey-thing chittering happily. "Why're you here?" 

Ursa watches them, bemused and lost, still letting the water of the world flow by. She will take it in later. It will mean something later. 

"They decided to move the treaty signing to Ba Sing Se," he says, "I think partially because Zuko and A - " then he glances at Ursa and stops himself, reddening slightly. "Because so much of the palace complex in the Fire Nation capital got destroyed," he amends. 

So much a boy, Ursa thinks. _Because Zuko and Azula's fight destroyed so much_ , she fills in for herself, tucking the thought carefully away like poison.

"And even though a bunch of the city still needs work, the Earth King's palace is pretty much in one piece, including all the guest rooms, so I guess they just figured it was easier. So since me and Appa were there, and the messenger hawk got in, I thought it might be a good idea if we came and offered you guys a lift. I mean," he adds, awkward, turning back to Ursa, "if you wouldn't mind flying, Lady Ursa." 

She looks at the wind-buffalo, and then at the child. 

"It's much faster, Lady Ursa," Ty Lee says, looking anxious. "And Appa's very safe, and he can carry all of us. Even Master Piandao. We could get to Ba Sing Se by afternoon." 

The wind-buffalo lows softly - well, softly for an animal that must weigh nearly a half-dozen tons. He lows as if in agreement. His eyes are huge and soft and look right at Ursa. He takes a step or two forward, to bend his legs and stick his vast head out, as if in invitation. 

Ursa hesitates, and then lays her hand just above his nose. He makes another sound, almost like approval. 

"Very well," she says softly, lost in soft eyes. 

The Avatar's face lights up with a smile as bright as stars.

*****

He gets the sense that Zuko's mom is kind of afraid of him, which Aang supposes was only natural, but is kind of upsetting anyway. Normally (well, sort of normally) he has to reassure people about Appa; this time, he gets the definite sense that Appa's reassuring Lady Ursa about _him._

It's kind of hard to tell if Appa's having a moment of brilliant inspiration, or if she happens to smell enough like Zuko that he figures she'd be just as good for scritches, but it's always hard to tell things with Appa. And either way, it worked. 

For his part, Momo seems to be on the fence about the new lady. 

She'd looked like she'd be just as willing to climb up onto Appa's saddle as Ty Lee was, but the innkeeper had already gone to get a bunch of boxes and a sturdy table to make a stairway for her. Master Piandao looked more dubious about flying than Lady Ursa did, but Aang noticed she's always watching _him_ out of the corner of her eye. 

When everyone's settled, minus the agents Mai had sent with them who'd take the eel-hounds back to the harbour to head home the long way, Aang looks around just to be sure. Master Piandao grips the side of the saddle tightly; Ty Lee looks pretty happy; and he can't tell what Lady Ursa's thinking. So he just said, "Okay, buddy. Yip yip!" 

Everyone reacts a little bit differently to flying. Katara insisted Sokka had squeaked and shouted like a happy kid, and Sokka insisted that Katara was a lying liar who lied and he'd been totally cool: Aang knows exactly who he believes on that one. Toph had hated it; Zuko'd been pretty used to it, from the war-balloons. Suki'd been wide-eyed and silent, but then, they'd been running from an attack at the time. Ty Lee had almost bounced off Appa's back in glee. 

Aang hears Lady Ursa gasp, so he turns around to see how she handles it. 

He sees Master Piandao first, who's sitting exactly where he was to start with, still holding onto the saddle, looking steadfastly at the saddle, and pretending he was really calm. Ty Lee's watching Lady Ursa like a nervous kid, and she - 

She'd gotten up on her knees, all the grace and poise he'd seen on the ground completely gone, and is staring over the edge with her eyes really wide, her mouth a little bit open, and looking, well, mostly amazed. 

The good kind of amazed. 

Aang thinks about it for a second, and then calls, "Hey, Ty Lee - want to steer?" 

It isn't the first time, but she kind of loves it - Aang thinks maybe because it showed that he trusted her, although really, if she tried to steer Appa somewhere he didn't think they should go, Appa would ignore her. But Aang doesn't mention that. It makes her happy, and he wants a chance to talk to Zuko's mom. 

Ty Lee vaults herself out of the saddle and down to trade him places, so that Aang can blow himself over to where she'd been. Momo decides to stay with Ty Lee for now, but they're getting to be pretty good friends. Lady Ursa sits back down a little bit, but she's still close to the edge of the saddle and mostly looking over. 

"Pretty great, huh?" he says. 

It;s hard to know exactly what to do, and Aang figures no one else was in a much better boat with that: there aren't any protocols about bringing back someone's mother who was also a princess who'd been banished for almost ten years. So he figures it's best just to be friendly. It'll probably make him seem less scary, too. 

It really bothers him, the idea that she could be afraid of him. More than it bothers him with other people, even. He isn't sure why. 

She looks at him, and said, "My grandfather rode a dragon. My grandmother would tell stories of what it was like to fly. I suppose I never believed her, but - " she gestures towards the sky all around them, with one open arm, little bits of her hair brushing against her face. 

Aang grins. "It's pretty amazing. I can't imagine what it would be like not to fly." 

Lady Ursa looks at him and smiles. "No," she said, "I suppose you wouldn't be able to." She looks out over the clouds again, and says, "The dragon-hunts started soon after my grandfather's death. We lost our chance to fly, when that happened." 

Aang decides to leave the war-balloons for later. She'll find out anyway. There's enough bad stuff for her to deal with. Instead, he says, "I guess your grandfather must've been pretty important - even before the hunts there were never as many dragons as there were sky-bison." 

Granted, now there's one sky-bison, unless some others had escaped and were living somewhere in the world. As soon as the treaties are done with and everything was settled, Aang intents to go look for them. But that's depressing, so he isn't going to mention it. 

This time, Lady Ursa's smile has a weird edge to it. She says, "Fairly important. They were very close, too; grandmother said his dragon died with him, trying to protect him." 

Something about that catches at the edge of Aang's mind; he winds up frowning without thinking about it, while Lady Ursa watches him, and - 

"I'm sorry," she says, and she actually sounds contrite, and he immediately wants to tell her she has nothing to apologize for, ever - the reaction's really strong - but she's already going on. "It's . . . very strange, to meet an ancestor reborn as something you were always taught was the enemy. Even when you know better." 

Aang stares at her for a moment, and she looks down. "Huh?" he says, and then could have matched Sokka's face-palm at himself. 

"Avatar Roku was Lady Ursa's grandfather," Master Piandao says, from his corner of the saddle where he's still hanging on for dear life. Lady Ursa looks sharply at him, and he bows from sitting. "My apologies, Lady Ursa," he says, "the White Lotus knows these things." 

"Of course they do," she replies, relaxing a little bit. "My grandmother told them; they helped her find a way to hide my father." 

Aang stares from one to the other. He tries to think of what to say, and what comes out is, "Oh." Then he says, "Oh," again, because of how much sense it makes, and how it explained why it bothered him she was afraid, and also - "Wait," he says, "Zuko never told me that." 

"He may not know," Lady Ursa says. "I never told him." 

"Iroh may have," Master Piandao says. 

"Iroh is White Lotus?" Lady Ursa sounds surprised, and then shakes her head. "Actually, that makes sense." 

The words kind of float around Aang in the air. Knowing Roku had been friends with Gyatso had felt right, like this deep sense of continuity, reminding him of what Hu said in the swamp; this is . . . different. Stranger, and, well - he can't put words to it. "Wow," he says. "Wait, that means Zuko's my great-grandson. Kind of. Except not." 

Momo comes soaring in from where he'd been playing in the clouds and catching bugs to eat. He isn't really paying attention, so he winds up landing closer to Lady Ursa than to Aang; he lets out a squawking noise and chitters, darting behind Aang's back. 

It breaks the moment, which Aang figures was kind of a good thing. He laughs. "Momo," he says, "don't be ridiculous. It's completely safe. This is Zuko's mom." He pulls the lemur out from behind himself and puts Momo between him and Lady Ursa. "Uh," he says, "there are some nuts in the bag just behind you over there. That's a good way to make friends, if you want to." 

Lady Ursa blinks at him, with one slow blink, like she's deciding something. Then she smiles again and says, "Alright," and reaches over for the pocket. 

Momo's ears perk up right away.

*****

The Earth King is patently insane. The actual one, not the cackling old man from Omashu, who just plays insane to put your off your guard. Mai had decided this when she was guarding his damn bear, and the treaty negotiations only underscore it.

The upside is that it's a polite, gentle kind of insanity. The other upside is that he's still obsessed with that damn bear, which means an easy way to clear the afternoon is to slip an emetic into the bear's food and watch the whole process grind to a halt while the Earth King fusses over a puking animal. 

It's nice to get some personal benefit out of that bear. 

They adjourned briefly when the bear looked unwell; about ten minutes later, a runner came from the Earth King to tender his apologies and explain that the bear is quite ill, and the Earth King would be indisposed for the afternoon, but would of course resume negotiations in the morning or as soon as Bosco felt better, whichever came first. 

Zuko, who spent the whole morning trying to pretend he could pay any attention at all to diplomats and counsellors, takes himself out to the gardens outside their guest-suite. Technically, Mai has another set of rooms down the hall, although it's clear nobody has yet figured out what heading to put her under. It's kind of amusing, not that she cared. 

She doesn't use them, anyway. 

She takes a minute or two to put a couple of notes in order and hand them to one of the aides from the diplomatic staff and send them away before she follows Zuko out. 

Mai hasn't actually seen her own mother since a day or two after getting out of her comfortable imprisonment. And her mother (and her father) hadn't known what to do with her. They can't disapprove of what she'd done, now that things had turned out the way they had. But they both desperately want to. And they can't tell her what to do; when her mother had suggested she move back to their house, Mai had just said, "No. I'm going to stay at the palace." 

Her mother had opened her mouth, and closed it, and given up. It should have felt like a triumph, to get them to completely give up their hold on her, but it really didn't matter. It's kind of amazing, how many things don't matter in the new world. 

That had been a little over a month ago, and this is the first time she'd thought of her mother. And she only does now because she wonders what it would be like to care so much about the woman that after so many years, it would make her as twisted up, as much of a disaster, as Zuko is right now. 

Mai doesn't bother trying to snap him out of it. Not this one. It would be pointless, and it would probably be cruel. 

The sun's warm, in the garden. When she finds him staring over the railing of one of the little bridges over one of the little streams, she says, "Well, since I know you're not cold this time, I'll have to settle for your life story." 

The smile he gives her tinged a little sickly. She puts her hand on his shoulder. "It'll be fine," she says. Which is one of those comforting half-lies, because she has no way of knowing whether it will be fine or not, but she's getting more comfortable with those when what they really meant was whatever happens, I'll still be here, and we'll figure it out. 

Zuko puts his hand over hers and squeezes her fingers. "Thanks," he says. "I just - " and then he opens his other hand to stand in for the words. 

Mai understands, probably better than he does. One of the fears that comes with wanting something is being afraid that once you got it, it won't actually be what you wanted after all. 

Whatever she might have said next is interrupted by the Avatar's lemur darting out of the sky to land on Zuko's shoulder and run itself around his body. Mai's still seriously ambivalent about the lemur; fortunately, the feeling seems to be mutual, and it never tries stuff on her. 

It chitters at Zuko for a minute and then takes off again, leaving him strung like a crossbow. "They must be almost here," he says, quietly, looking up at the sky. "Maybe we should go to - " 

Mai cuts him off gently. "I think the Avatar probably sent the lemur so that they could land wherever you were, Zuko." 

"Oh," he says, proving that his higher brain functions had abandoned him in sheer panic (sheer panic of the happy kind, but he's still Zuko). "Right. You're probably right." 

Mai remembers Lady Ursa, in the vague way you remember friends' parents who disappeared when you were still a child: she remembers a gentle voice, mostly calm except when she caught Azula doing certain things. She remembers a pretty face, and some stories and songs. 

She wants to point out to Zuko that if the woman isn't proud of what he'd done with the life she'd saved, she's an idiot, and Mai doesn't think Zuko's mother is an idiot. But that kind of thing doesn't seem to comfort him half as often as it should. 

So,"Breathe, Zuko," is all she says.

****

He stops breathing when the sky-bison comes into sight. Mai can feel it.

Zuko's fingers close tight around her hand as he watches Appa descend. When the bison settles onto the ground with his usual _whuff_ of landing, Mai squeezes Zuko's hand in return, then pulls hers out to give him a push forward for at least a few steps. 

He takes them, and then stops. Mai watches Ty Lee bound to the grass and flash her - both of them - the grin she always puts over nervousness. She watches the Avatar alight on a brush of wind that came over to ruffle Zuko's robes. She watches the sword-master Piandao climb down with the expression of someone who's really, really happy to be back on solid ground. 

Then the Avatar calls up one of his spheres of whirling air so that he could float and give a hand down, with the sword-master, to the last person on the bison's saddle. 

She's the same height as Mai, Mai estimates. Her clothes are Earth Kingdom, probably because that's what you could buy in whatever town they stopped in. But they're good, appropriately made, at least. Piandao probably thought of that one; Mai doesn't think it would occur to the Avatar, or even to Ty Lee. There are threads of grey in the lady's hair hair. 

Once she's on the ground, she freezes, too, which at least told Mai where Zuko got it from. The Avatar, the sword-master and Ty Lee all stand back out of the way, looking nervous. Mai just waits. 

"Hello, Mother," Zuko manages softly, after they've stared at each other for a few heartbeats. Lady Ursa takes a step or two forward, hands rising to press against one another. Her eyes are wide and bright. 

"Oh sun in Heaven," she breathes. Her voice is ragged. "You got so _tall_." She presses her hands to her mouth, just briefly. 

Zuko stands like he's stunned. And Mai thinks, for a split second, that if they both just stand there much longer she's going to shake them. 

Then she realizes that Lady Ursa's staring for a reason. That she's writing over the image of a little boy with the image of Zuko now. Mai realizes it, because after that split second, Lady Ursa _stops_ staring and flings herself at her son. 

The others look away. Mai doesn't. She watches Lady Ursa press her face (covered with tears, now) to Zuko's shoulder, and she watches Zuko cling to his mother's tunic to keep from crushing her instead. 

Mai realizes she was smiling, a little. Thinking about it, she decides not to stop. 

That'll do.

*****

It startles Ursa, that what brought her up short again and again was that he's so tall.

When she'd left, Azulon's blood on her hands, Zuko had still been a small child, still little enough to be pulled into her lap, encompassed in her arms, carried (if only for a little spell); now, he's taller than Ursa and, if he takes after her side of the family that way, might not be done growing. 

The scar is less terrible than she expected. It angers rather than horrifies her, maybe because as out of place as it would be on the boy she'd left, it seems part of the young man she's come back to. Ursa is angry that it had been done, and why, and by whom, but it doesn't bother her that it was there now. 

He's her son, but she doesn't know who he was, and she knows this. Knows this painfully well. But what the knowledge sticks on, what it decides to make the centre of disbelief, is that he's so tall. 

Once she had let him go, once she had managed to stop crying and smiling and hugging him to her again, they had moved back in through the door, out of the gardens. The Avatar's wind-buffalo stayed outside, but the lemur came in. 

The habits of thought were rusty, but still there: her eye takes in the suite, takes a guess at the other rooms, and some part of her is contented. For a city so recently at war, this is appropriate. There is no subtle insult in the rooms, no jockeying for power. They could have done that, the Earth Kingdom powers. She almost wouldn't blame them. But they aren't. 

She still has Zuko's arm, until he leads her to sit on one of the low benches. The Avatar happily sits on the floor; by now she knows he has no more sense of or interest in decorum than his lemur, which she finds a little bit endearing. Piandao and Ty Lee both take their leave; Piandao bowing to Ursa, Zuko, and then to the Avatar, who gets up to bow back before dropping himself down to the ground again; and Ty Lee starting to bow before the young woman who'd stood behind Zuko, and followed them, says, "Ty _Lee_ ," in a voice of exasperation. 

"Oh right!" And instead, Ty Lee hugs the young woman, hugs Zuko (and both of them wear almost the same face of tolerance), kisses the top of the Avatar's head, and bows while standing to Ursa before going. 

This - all of this, Ursa suspects, is the Avatar's influence. She can't decide if she's enchanted or appalled. Or both. She can't decide much. She is, she realizes, still holding on to Zuko's hand. 

Afraid it might all evaporate without warning. 

Before anyone can say anything else, there's a tap at the door: when the Avatar blows it open, it admits a servant who prostrates himself and announces that negotiations will resume in a quarter of an hour.

*****

Zuko goes, but only because Ursa insists.

It's all a whirl, still. None of it feels real. But the princess she was and might in some way be again, knows that what is to be signed at the table is more important. The Avatar protests, but Ursa stands firm. In the back of her mind is the knowledge that Ozai would have stayed, putting his own desires over duty, and that as much as anything makes her bid her son to go. She stands up to hug him again and kisses his left cheek. 

The Avatar's face is a picture of twelve-year-old irritation. "C'mon, Zuko," he says, standing at the door. "We'll get this done and over with fast." 

"I'll stay," says the young woman, says Azula's other childhood friend, Mai. Ursa recognizes her now. Zuko nods, and Mai kisses his right cheek before he goes

She doesn't look at Ursa afterwards - neither looks, nor ostentatiously doesn't. Just waits by the door to close it behind them. That means that she doesn't see the smile that Ursa then hides when the girl turns around. That had been a challenge, a little bit of one. The girl might not realize it; Ursa wouldn't have, at, what, sixteen? But it is: a challenge and a statement, intended-wife to mother. 

I matter, too. 

It all whirls around her, but Ursa had already gathered that much. The young woman had been here, and she moves about this room as if it were familiar - and there's a woman's set of combs on one of the tables. 

Mai, and Piandao's longer-telling, both on the way to the inn and then resumed on the wind-buffalo, flying, came back to her. Mai, who had been Azula's friend, that Ursa remembers. Mai, who had saved Zuko's life when Azula would have killed him (some part of Ursa wants to change that, wanted to say _left him to die_ , but no: when one word from a princess would have stopped them, not saying it made _killed_ the right word), and whom Azula had imprisoned for it. 

She tries to keep the thoughts of her daughter shallow, surface, glancing like light off a mirror. There will be time for that later. Now there is all the time in the world. 

Ursa looks at the girl, the young woman, and thinks that anyone in the Fire Nation not betting on her as their Lady to come is a fool. They _might_ deceive themselves: that she is here shows a lack of decorum and what the court might call a deplorable lack of discretion, and for someone else that might have mattered, might have made the difference between leman and wife. 

She has only just met her son again, and otherwise knows him only through stories she has so recently heard, but Ursa is certain it wouldn't be so for Mai. 

Young Mai (young, and so young, and yet compared to the little girl in her memory so much grown, so old) turns to face her, and Ursa sees that she's nervous. She hides it well, folding it away under a layer of calm, even indifference. But not well enough. "Welcome back," she says. 

She had risked her life to save Zuko's. It is, if nothing else, something they have in common. Ursa smiles and holds out both hands to draw Mai to sit beside her on the bench. "It's good to see you, Mai," she says. 


End file.
